What is this?
The Genius annotation is the work of the Genius Editorial project. Our editors and contributors collaborate to create the most interesting and informative explanation of any line of text. It’s also a work in progress, so leave a suggestion if this or any annotation is missing something.
To learn more about participating in the Genius Editorial project, check out the contributor guidelines.
What is this?
The Genius annotation is the work of the Genius Editorial project. Our editors and contributors collaborate to create the most interesting and informative explanation of any line of text. It’s also a work in progress, so leave a suggestion if this or any annotation is missing something.
To learn more about participating in the Genius Editorial project, check out the contributor guidelines.
Our Lady of Walsingham is a title applied to Mary after she supposedly appeared there to Richeldis de Faverches in 1061.
Although her famous shrine had been destroyed, the author believes that her patronage has not vanished; this faith in the face of adversity is typical of the English Recusants of the Elizabethan period.
Her invocation at the beginning of the poem under the title of “muse” is a deliberate aversion of the neo-Classical invocation of the pagan Muses with which Renaissance poets very frequently began their works.
Where the press of peers did pass
While her fame was blown. Anonymous – The Ruins of Walsingham
What is this?
The Genius annotation is the work of the Genius Editorial project. Our editors and contributors collaborate to create the most interesting and informative explanation of any line of text. It’s also a work in progress, so leave a suggestion if this or any annotation is missing something.
To learn more about participating in the Genius Editorial project, check out the contributor guidelines.
Previously the pious feudal lords had been eager to visit this shrine;
after the Reformation, it was completely forsaken, as most of the upper classes conformed to the state Church of England (and attempts to rebuild it would have suppressed as affronts to the government, anyway).
On a more cheerful note, the revived shrine does attract a few prominent pilgrims, including these Knights (and Dames) of Malta (the rather heavy chap with bowed head is their Prince-Grand Master)
The seely sheep
Murdered by the ravenous wolves
While the shepherds did sleep. Anonymous – The Ruins of Walsingham
What is this?
The Genius annotation is the work of the Genius Editorial project. Our editors and contributors collaborate to create the most interesting and informative explanation of any line of text. It’s also a work in progress, so leave a suggestion if this or any annotation is missing something.
To learn more about participating in the Genius Editorial project, check out the contributor guidelines.
The author compares those who destroyed Walsingham Priory to the the wolves, or at least to the “bad shepherds” (as opposed to the “Good Shepherd”), from John 10. Even those who aren’t actively trying to destroy the Catholic Church are turning a blind eye to the depredations of those who do – an attitude which was only practical in the Elizabethan era, but which is not perhaps the most commendable.
“Seely” is an old word for “holy,” and thus the sheep may specifically represent the Catholic religious community that had lived at Walsingham.
Which now adorns her house far-famed in song. HailTheKing – To the Archduchess Eleonore von Habsburg-Löthringen
This refers to the golden fleece (nowadays thought to have been a sheep’s skin full of gold dust) which was the object of the quest of Jason and his Argonauts. It was adopted as the symbol of the ultra-exclusive Order of the Golden Fleece
which is distributed by the head of the House of Hapsburg (currently Eleonore’s father)
What is this?
The Genius annotation is the work of the Genius Editorial project. Our editors and contributors collaborate to create the most interesting and informative explanation of any line of text. It’s also a work in progress, so leave a suggestion if this or any annotation is missing something.
To learn more about participating in the Genius Editorial project, check out the contributor guidelines.
This poem is addressed to an idealized maiden, not any girl in particular; in the Platonic understanding, she would then possess the fullness of every quality typical of her kind, and truly be their pride.
Sadly, she could only exist in the unimaginable realm of forms.
Note that there might well be a Marian reference here (considering that the poem was written by monks)
What is this?
The Genius annotation is the work of the Genius Editorial project. Our editors and contributors collaborate to create the most interesting and informative explanation of any line of text. It’s also a work in progress, so leave a suggestion if this or any annotation is missing something.
To learn more about participating in the Genius Editorial project, check out the contributor guidelines.
Venus (or Aphrodite) was the Greco-Roman goddess of love and beauty, and is thus the idealization of everything the author of this poem praises.
She doesn’t really like clothes…
What is this?
The Genius annotation is the work of the Genius Editorial project. Our editors and contributors collaborate to create the most interesting and informative explanation of any line of text. It’s also a work in progress, so leave a suggestion if this or any annotation is missing something.
To learn more about participating in the Genius Editorial project, check out the contributor guidelines.
Helen of Troy, whose face “launch’d a thousand ships,” and who is renowned as perhaps the most beautiful woman of all time.
What is this?
The Genius annotation is the work of the Genius Editorial project. Our editors and contributors collaborate to create the most interesting and informative explanation of any line of text. It’s also a work in progress, so leave a suggestion if this or any annotation is missing something.
To learn more about participating in the Genius Editorial project, check out the contributor guidelines.
When you wake up in the afternoon, you tend to feel like shit, more so if you have an hangover.
Especially in the latter case, the only reasonable solution is to drink – it doesn’t really make you feel good, and you’re not exactly drowning your sorrows, but it does restore a kind of familiar sensation, and thus grounds you. Minimizes the anomie too, which is a big plus for millenials.
This sounds like my college years